[amsat-bb] Field Day

I ran W4CVY for our club's Field Day effort from west/central Georgia.
I've had mixed results in past years making at least one contact for the
100 point bonus. I've been slowly improving my gear every year.
This year I finally got circ-polarized crossed Yagis for 2m and 70cm (M2
LEO pack purchased through the Amsat store), got fully automatic
tracking working (K3NG/Arduino controller for Yaesu G-5500 rotor setup),
and figured out more of Sat32PC. Discovered in pre-FD testing that the
power amp in my FT-736R was toast, but 1-2 watts it was putting out was
fine with my 70cm power amp. Ran the 2m side barefoot (no amp).
Made 3 contacts total, all SSB on FO-29. SO-50 was just chaos.
Heard and tried both AO-73 and AO-7, but was never able to find myself
and get my uplink calibrated in Sat32PC. On AO-73 I went manual a
couple of times, keying down my CW key and sweeping my transmit with the
big knob. I quickly found myself, but was never able to successfully
translate the result over to Sat32PC CAT control uplink calibration and
hear myself on SSB.
Things I know I can improve on: operating Sat32PC (powerful program, but
not easy to learn to drive well) and need to check the accuracy of my
rotor control (looks good at 0 azimuth, but looks about 10 degrees off
at 180).
David, ky7dr
On 2015-06-28 20:00, Paul Stoetzer wrote:
> How did everyone's Field Day go? Heard quite a bit of QSOs made. Heard
> quite a bit of struggling too!
>> Weather was awful, so I was just operating from the grounds of my
> apartment building here in DC. I managed 20 QSOs with 5 watts, which
> wasn't easy with how overloaded the transponders were with strong
> signals.
>> Next year maybe I'll help out a local club on the sats.
>> 73,
>> Paul, N8HM
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